The I&M Canal State Trail is shown on July 30, 2018, near Brandon Road in Rockdale. Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three women on or near the trail. Two of the attacks took place near Brandon Road.

The I&M Canal State Trail is shown on July 30, 2018, near Brandon Road in Rockdale. Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three women on or near the trail. Two of the attacks took place near Brandon Road. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)

I listened in a Will County courtroom Monday as two women delivered dramatic victim-impact statements during a sentencing hearing for a confessed serial rapist.

Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, pleaded guilty in May in connection with the sexual assaults of three women on or near the I&M Canal State Trail, a recreational path popular among runners, walkers and bicyclists. During Monday's hearing, prosecutors also played a videotaped confession Luna gave to investigators in May 2016.

That’s when investigators for the Will County sheriff and Illinois State Police cracked the case and identified Luna as the assailant. Luna should face 32 to 80 years in prison for the felony assaults when sentencing concludes on Aug. 17, assistant Will County state’s attorney Mary Fillipitch told Judge David Carlson.

The three assaults happened between September, 2015, and May, 2016. One of the victims, a young woman in her 20s, has since died. The two others recounted the trauma of the assaults and their determination to see their assailant brought to justice.

Both women described how they were tackled from behind as they jogged along the trail. Both said they were carried off the trail and repeatedly raped, one near I-55 in Channahon and the other near Brandon Road in Rockdale. Each assault lasted about 90 minutes, both women testified. Both women described being tied up with clothing and being battered as they resisted the attacks.

The Daily Southtown does not identify victims of rape.

The first woman who testified said she was attacked early on a Sunday morning during Labor Day weekend in 2015. She said after the attack she had trouble associating with strangers, being alone and falling asleep at night.

“The torture continued as nightmares once I fell asleep,” she said in court.

The young woman said she was a competitive runner.

“The worst part is he took something I loved and made me terrified,” she said.

When the attack ended, the woman could not find her clothes. She used grass to cover herself and returned to the trail. A man jogging along the path found her, gave her his shorts and accompanied her to the Rockdale police station nearby, an investigator testified.

The woman has overcome her fear and has continued running competitively, she told the courtroom.

The second woman, a mother of three, testified she was finishing up a morning run in May, 2016. She said she was a half mile from her home, hurrying to finish in time to make it to her son’s baseball game when she was attacked.

“At that moment my life changed forever,” she said in court.

During the 90-minute attack, the woman’s husband and daughter searched for her, she testified. They found her mobile phone in tall weeds near the trail.

“They were scared they would not find me alive,” she said.

The brutal assault left her traumatized and unable to enjoy the trail and other natural features near her home, she said. She said she is now worried her children might also be attacked. She said she becomes fearful if they don’t immediately reply to her text messages.

“I’m angry that my children now have to live with my fears,” she said.

The woman’s husband and a daughter found her when she untied herself after the assailant left, she said. Investigators interviewed her in the emergency room at Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.

“My partner and I noticed the similarity to the previous case,” Will County sheriff’s detective James Jones testified.

About a dozen supporters of the two women sat in the courtroom as they read their statements. Two comfort dogs provided by the victim advocacy unit of the Will County state’s attorney’s office accompanied the women in the courtroom.

Both women testified their assailant threatened to kill them with a knife. In the videotaped confession played in court, Luna admitted threatening the women but told investigators he did not have a knife when he assaulted them.

Prosecutors also played a videotaped interview that investigators conducted in May, 2016 with a third woman who was raped. The woman has since died. In the interview, the young woman described how she was attacked in the back of a van on a path near Brandon Road and the Des Plaines River in May, 2016.

The woman said she agreed to a 10-minute sexual encounter with Luna in exchange for $50. But she said in the interview, after the initial sexual act Luna tied her up, forced her to have sex again and took back $20.

The woman was acquainted with another prostitute who had previously had sex with Luna, investigators testified. The acquaintance identified Luna as the assailant and led investigators to where he was living in Joliet, detectives testified.

Detectives surveilled the residence and when Luna left in his van, they pulled him over for a traffic violation. Investigators interviewed Luna at a sheriff’s station on May 22, 2016. More than an hour of Luna’s videotaped confession was played in court.

Will County sheriff

Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, is shown in a 2016 booking photo.

Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, is shown in a 2016 booking photo. (Will County sheriff)

In the confession, Luna provided detailed accounts, in English, of each of the three attacks. His accounts seemed to closely match the descriptions provided by the three women. Luna told detectives he tried to control his urge to have sex with women.

“I’ve been fighting against this, how you call it, desire,” he said in the videotaped interview. “I was asking God to stop me but he didn’t.”

Luna’s attorney, former Will County Judge Marzell Richardson, said Luna was working as a landscaper at the time of his arrest and is a native of Mexico. Will County court records show that Luna was charged 36 times for misdemeanor traffic offenses between 2001 and 2016.

“Miguel Luna is in this country illegally,” State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow said in a statement announcing Luna’s guilty plea in May. “This ruthlessly violent sexual predator should never have had the opportunity to brutally prey upon these innocent young women.”

In the videotaped interview, Luna said he wanted to leave the United States and be deported to Mexico.

“I was asking God to let the police take me for my bad record,” he told investigators. “When I got pulled over I said (to myself), ‘I hope this time they take me to Mexico.’”

He said he was once detained by immigration authorities but released because he only had misdemeanor driving offenses on his record at that point.

“They asked me if I had felonies and I said, ‘no, just traffic tickets,’” Luna told investigators. He was detained for an hour, then released, he said. “I asked God, ‘Why don’t you listen to me? I don’t like this country because there’s a lot of temptation.’”

Near the conclusion of the videotaped interview, a detective told Luna that his arrest meant God might have been listening, after all.